


Salt

by Talimee



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Breaking Up & Making Up, Character Development, Character Study, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 00:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21637816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talimee/pseuds/Talimee
Summary: Humans are sad creatures. They bind themselves to people or places – ideas, really – and those bindings become what they are. They eat them, breathe them, live them; they grow in them and continue to grow even if their bonds twist and curve around them to keep their forms contained. Humans warp themselves to fit into an idea.This is the story of two humans.
Relationships: Charlie Dickenson/Nadia Wong
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5
Collections: The Not-Asheiji Bang 2019





	1. duty

It has been a long time since she looked _up_. Since she has taken a moment to pause, to shed her burdens, rolled back her shoulders and her neck and lifted her gaze to the sky. Neither moon, nor sun have seen her face in what amounts to years. Rain has touched the crown of her head, as it blesses everyone baring their hair to the sky, but she hasn't known the joy that comes with natural light in her eyes.

She firmly keeps them straight ahead as she steps down from her kitchen to the backstreet's dirty concrete. Three large, black bags in each hand, she walks over to the spilling dumpster and pretends not to see small shadows whisking away from her path. Having put away her trash, she wipes her hands on her trousers and returns to her home. Never pausing, never looking up. Her world is full of shadows and backstreets and dishwater. There is no place in it for the brilliantly pink and orange evening sky.

“More tea, aunt Wu?” Nadia asks as she turns to the elderly woman seated at her table and without waiting for an response – she knows the answer already – refills her cup. The table is a small, rickety thing, pushed into a corner between an old freezer and bundles of pipes for who-knows-what. The insulation is flaking off the pipes, the freezer needs to be cleaned out, and she still remembers the cigarette burns on the oilcloth that had covered the table fifteen years ago.

“Bless you, child” aunt Wu answers with a warm smile. She picks at a small dish of misshapen Dim Sum that couldn't be served to customers and her workers' hands operate her chopsticks as daintily as a queen. “I don't know what I'd do without you. It's a blessing to have a chat and some company after a long day.”

A tight smile flits over Nadia's face at that. Life is a terrible thing when faced alone and she knows that aunt Wu sees her as a surrogate daughter. It gives Nadia equal amounts of joy and satisfaction, knowing that she lighten the old seamstress' lot but, and there is always a _but_ in Nadia's thoughts and feelings nowadays, the more people depend on her, the more she feels caged in, bound and fettered to the expectations of others. Back when she had to provide for Shorter, she had no time to think about her feelings but now, with her little brother independent and more often gone from the restaurant than not, Nadia has the freedom to explore the depths of her heart, especially after meeting Charlie, who is everything she knows she should not love …

Aunt Wu stays blissfully unaware of the conflicting feelings in Nadia's heart as she sits behind her, waiting for Nadia to continue the conversation. “I'm glad, I can be of help” she says, bend over her sink and the soapy dish-water therein, and asks: “How was your day?”

And as her neighbor starts to tell her about her customers, of fittings and fixes and repairs, of deliveries gone wrong and orders done right, and finally tidbits of news from her estranged daughter, Nadia tackles the burned pots and pans with vigor until they are … well, not gleaming, but at least until her searching fingers can't find evidence of today's meals anymore. When she is done and the water flows down the gurgling drain, aunt Wu asks about Charlie.

“He's no longer observing the restaurant”, Nadia tells her while drying her hands. They are wrinkled and red, workers' hands as well and never elegant even if adorned with diamonds. “I think they took the investigation into another direction …” She does not extrapolate why she knows this, trust and a hunger for gossip prevents aunt Wu from wondering.

“Foolish to set one of them up here”, the older woman says with soft scorn, “to catch your brother, of all things. He'd never be so stupid.”

“I don't know about catching”, Nadia mumbles in second-hand embarrassment. After all, Shorter had been here at the beginning, prancing around the restaurant in his ridiculous disguise. “As fas as I know, they just wanted to ask him some things.” That was what Charlie had vouched for, at least.

“Still foolish”, aunt Wu counters and pops the last of the dim sum into her mouth with a smug smile. “As if anyone of us would tell them anything.”

At this, Nadia has to turn back to her working space and pretend to clean up some more.

 _Us and Them_ , she thinks bitterly, _it's always Us against Them. It'll never change_. The flutter in her heart is mirrored by her trembling hands. She knows she is a traitor to her people. With Charlie Dickinson staying upstairs in her bed there is nothing else she can be.

Bidding aunt Wu a distracted goodbye as the other woman gets up and leaves, Nadia counts till ten before exhaling and she slumps forward, resting her forehead against a cupboard front. _Us against Them_ , she repeats in her head. Until recently, she had found comfort in that concept. As one of “us” she knew she had people at her side on whose help she could count. People like aunt Wu or her parents, strangers in a foreign land who supported each other because they knew their people with a kind of intimacy unknown to others. No need to talk to outsiders – everyone knew someone who could help in any given situation. And if no such person could be found, there was always the Lee-family.

Nadia has grown up on the Lees' praises sung by her parents, her neighbors, her friends. Thanks to the Lees her parents had come to New York, thanks to the Lees they got the lease on the plot and the restaurant, thanks to the Lees … She sighs deeply. Thanks to the Lees Shorter got to stay with her instead of being shipped off to a foster home. A generous loan to the restaurant, a few documents conjured up from thin air and she could keep their home, could keep her little brother.

A mountain of dept, that can never be repaid.


	2. warm

The sickly yellow glow of the street lamps does not quite reach the second story bedroom where Charlie gets up from the bed, under protests of his screaming back, and switches on the overhead lamp. He turns back to said bed, hand stroking his unshaven chin as he contemplates the mess he has created on the covers.

Detective Charles Dickinson of the NYPD, sub-section homicide, Charlie to his friends (and Charles Eugene William Dickinson III. to his mom whenever she wants to put the Fear Of God into him) knows his tutors at Police Academy would be proud of his undercover skills if they could see him now: Unshaven and in need of a shower, clad in striped pajama bottoms and little else, he does not look like one of New York City's finest and brightest. And now, if they could all just overlook the fact that he is dating the very person, and sleeps at the very place, he is supposed to observe? Please?

He groans and slides his hand up to cover his eyes. He is in so much trouble if Jenkins or, Heaven forbid!, the Superintendent ever find out about this gross breach of professionalism. An hour of being yelled at is the least he'd be in for.

Trying to shift his thoughts from the Damocles' Sword of Disciplinary Hearing or even Suspension, he concentrates on the mind-map he has created on Nadia's bedspread with scraps of paper. Because, even undressed as he is and compromising his assignment, Charlie Dickinson is a cop with a _work ethic_. Mumbling to himself he follows the items piece by piece, hoping that the spread may point to a new direction he hasn't thought of before. Eventually, his eyes come to rest on a scrap of laundry advertising right in the center of the spread. He has written “Ash” on there and, like every time in the last month when he has thought of him, Charlie feels the urge to curse the stubborn boy.

He doesn't, of course. According to what Charlie knows, Ash has been cursed enough already, and the detective suspects an even greater depth of misery is hidden behind Ash's snide cynicism. So, Charlies wishes all the best to Ash – wherever he and his friends might be at the moment – but cannot help tacking on the fervent prayer that the boy might come to his senses and turn in the evidence or information he has on Dino Golzine.

Hands raking through his hair, Charlie groans in frustration. If he could just get his hands on Ash, if he could just find some proof! Charlie doesn't even need hard evidence! He's ready to grab _anything_ that allows for a search warrant. Just enough for the NYPD to get their hands on Golzine's accounts and data …

Too much has happened since the start of the year, beginning with the three alleged suicides of influential businessmen and ending with rumors of the Union Corse and the Lee-Syndicate joining forces to … what? No one knows. But all across town people have started dying in violent circumstances; people who were never the type for rash decisions or self-destructive behavior. Influential and powerful people. And in the middle of it: Ash and his gang of street-kids. Formerly loosely connected (but never proven) to the Union Corse, now suddenly having shoot-outs in broad daylight with Golzine's goons and being persecuted in ways that speak of very powerful enemies.

Ash has something that is dangerous to Golzine, Charlie is sure of it. And with Shorter Wong missing as well, Charlie suspects the boys know things that might shake up a large part, if not all, of Lower Manhattan's organized crime. Right now, that upheaval is limited to the underworld's lower echelons – new gangs rising to the top, new leaders carving out a turf for themselves in territories formerly belonging to Ash or Shorter but to Charlie's street sense this reeks of a falling-out of epic proportions between the leaders and their foot-soldiers, and the gang-wars in Lower Manhatta and the subsequent rise of Frederick Arthur are only a symptom of it.

Footsteps on the landing alert him to Nadia's presence and he flips the bed covers onto his impromptu mind map the moment she opens the door. She pauses a second, almond shaped eyes trained on the few scraps of paper that have fluttered to the floor by his sudden movement, before she visibly decides to ignore them. Charlie doesn't know how to feel about this.

“Hey”, he says instead and walks up to her, arms opening in greeting, and he sighs happily when she steps into his embrace.

“Hey yourself”, she says into his shoulder. She smells of spices and sweat, something Charlie has grown to love during the time he has known her. He presses his nose into her hair, unable to resist his urges when her lithe, warm body is so perfectly pressed against his.

“Tired?”

Her answering scoff conveys everything from her exhaustion to her mild vexation about being asked a redundant question after a ten hour shift.

“Sorry”, he smiles and pecks Nadia's temple. “I'll leave you to your shower.” The warm twinkle in her eyes as she unfolds from his arms floors him, as always. He watches her grabbing a bathrobe and pad off to her shower, barely holding his feelings together. He loves her. It's as simple as that and oh, so complicated! If he could, he would wrap her in heated bathrobes, ply her with food and drink and love, and protect her from the harshness of the world. Because she deserves all this and much more. Because life has been hard for Nadia Wong and she needs rest. Only …

He senses the spread behind him, like a dark abyss, and he knows that it pains her. His work has the potential to cut her to ribbons, should it lead to her brother being taken away from her.

He has assured her time and time again that he only wants Shorter for information but Charlie knows that he's powerless to keep Nadia's brother safe should Shorter be on Chinatown's blacklist. Ash's transfer to Faulkner earlier this year – without a proper warrant, without even a hearing, and as a minor to boot – has proven that beyond doubt. It still grates on Charlie's soul that the Inspector had to pull private strings to get Ash bailed out. This is not how justice is supposed to work! But New York seems to work not on equality but on a network of connections, and Charlie suspects that accepting this fact will be one very large and bitter pill for him to swallow. But Shorter isn't back, yet, and there are things Charlie actually can make better so he cleans up the remnants of his mind-map and does the bed before asking Nadia out for dinner through the bathroom door.

Later, as they're walking along the brightly lit streets of her neighborhood, sated on food and on each other's company, they smile at each other and Charlie slips his arm around Nadia's waist, pulling her closer. It makes walking the crowded and narrow sidewalks that much harder but neither of them cares. They laugh away the pursed lips and narrowed eyes of oncoming strangers when they don't quite manage to side-step them without bumping into other pedestrians. After a while though, Nadia's laughter grows quiet and the shine in her eyes grows dull. They are near the Chang Dai and the stern glances around them are the judging stares of Nadia's neighbors and friends.

They know who he is, they know what he was originally here for. He can imagine that they do not like to see one of their own with someone considered an outsider at best. He pulls her closer to his side, telling her without words that she has him, will always have him, and that he'll do anything to keep her safe and sound.

They stop in front of her home. Nadia had turned down the lights before they left and the dark windows and unlit front make the place look cold and dreary.

“Come stay at my place the next time you have time off”, Charlie almost begs her when they turn around to say goodnight. He loathes the thought of her all alone in the empty house, without her brother, without anyone to liven up the place.

“I would love that.” Her voice is soft and a bit slurry. It was a long day for her and tomorrow will be just as taxing. Charlie pulls her to him, his surging feelings having no other outlet than a hug that is as brief as Nadia's smiles.

“I love you”, he says with the desperation of oncoming departure.

“I love you too.” Her lips briefly graze his jaw. “Goodnight.”

He waits until the rooms upstairs light up, until her silhouette waves at him through the window, before walking off to the nearest subway station. The night is cold and he shivers in his polyester suit jacket, only the thought of her keeping him warm.


	3. soul

The trembling in her hands hasn't stopped since the moment Charlie's friends took a look at her, but it's OK. It's OK. They're strangers, they don't know her. There is no sane reason in the world why they should look at her with such sorrow.

She screws her eyes shut as boiling-hot nausea bursts through her stomach.

Of course, they know her. They're Charlie's friends, they've been to L.A. with Shorter and Ash and that other young man. Of course, they know her! And her anxious, fretting mind is telling her the one valid reason for their pity.

She flees into the guest-room, turning down the beds, counting the clean towels in the bathroom. Her hands shake. They still shake when Charlie wraps his hands around them, pressing them to his chest with devastation in his eyes.

“You don't need to say anything”, she says. “I understand. These people, the way they look at me … Their eyes tell me that something has happened but I need to hear it myself.” She forces her words through her chattering teeth. “Is he dead?”

Charlie's look breaks her heart. He opens his mouth, she slips her hands out of his grasp and turns away. Touch is an unbearable reminder of the world when all she wants is to crawl inside herself to hide. Then the tears come.

“Nadia --”

“I knew it would come to this!”, she sobs into her hands. “Ever since the day he went to these people.”

The flat is quiet, her crying the only thing of substance.

Then, Charlie's clothes rustle and she feels a touch at her arm, then his arms around her shoulders, his warmth against her back.

“I won't cry …” Her voice is thick with tears. “I knew it would come this way … I knew it …”

Charlie murmurs words behind her ears, vows to stay by her side forever but he is not the man she wants, he is not the man her heart is crying out for.

The door falls shut behind him and Charlie is away to work.

Nadia steels herself and turns to the other two. “You must be tired. The beds are ready.”

One of them tries to speak to her but she brushes him off. “Not now”, she begs. “I can't do this alone.”

Her hands have stopped shaking. She's brittle and in free fall, ready to shatter.

“... OK, Nadia?”

She looks up at three faces staring at her, not recalling when she had looked away. “Of course”, she says. “It's your flat. Your friends can stay as long as they want.” Charlie's face flickers – she doesn't see the other two – in his attempt at controlling his emotions. But she can read him. “I was elsewhere with my thoughts”, she explains. “Excuse me.” She takes refuge in the bedroom. It's cold in here and noisy, but the sounds of the street that filter through the open window are not enough to drown out the men in the living room.

“Of course, she's not OK!”, Max snaps. “We've just told her--”

“I know!” Charlie. “ _Stupid!_ ”

She closes the window with a snap, making them stutter. After a few seconds of silence Charlie appears next to her in the window, carefully extracting the blinder's cord from her fist and closing it.

“I'm so so sorry”, Charlie croaks.

She turns around to see him biting back tears. “It's OK”, she murmurs. “They can stay, I don't mind.” She knows this is not what Charlie means, but she clings to the chance to focus on something mundane. Because if she doesn't, if she acknowledges Max and Ibe's report, if her focus slips and she concentrates on the abyss lurking behind her, she …

“I'll go home tomorrow”, she states and cuts over his stunned protest. “I need something to do.”

He pauses, then nods. He understands; they both live for their work.

As soon as she unlocks the back door, the phone rings.

“Yes”, she answers, wedging the receiver between ear and shoulder. It's Charlie. She lets him talk, and after she discovers that she can't concentrate on what he's saying she pushes his voice into the background while she goes through her routine.

Closing the door, shrugging off her coat. Her kitchen never really gets cold but autumn is closing in and there is a draft from the stairway leading up to their flat so she's closing that door as well. Switching on the stove, she pulls a huge pot of broth onto the burner. It's nearly full, she notices with vague satisfaction; her temps having followed instructions to top it up and set it to boil before yesterday's shift ended. The tea kettle is topped up, too. She turns it on.

The bell over the front door jingles, startling her. Then her heart speeds up. With two steps she's at the front, rushing through the short corridor connecting the kitchen and the restaurant proper. It's--

\--one of her temps, letting herself in before her shift. “Oh.”

They both stare at each other.

“G..good morning, Nadia”, she stutters. “I … wasn't sure if you'd be here …”

And suddenly she recognizes the look, the awkward stance, the careful probing. They know, they _all_ know. Nothing stays a secret in Chinatown, Death even less so. _They will come_ , she realizes with crushing dread. Condolences, curiosity, concern – all proper reasons for them to drop in on her today. Nadia knows it'll be too much to handle.

“You manage the front. I'll be in the kitchen.” Her voice breaks, and she barely waits for the temp's nod before she hurries away.

The tea-kettle is rattling already. Nadia pulls her mug from the dish-washer, adds a tea-bag of cheap Oolong, pours water on it. She starts when she discovers the telephone receiver lying next to the stove, having no recollection of having it put down there. The display is dark, Charlie's call long ended.

To her relief, people leave her alone. If there's more traffic at the front of the restaurant, more people looking in and gossiping, it doesn't reach her refuge. She buries herself in routine.

It's late afternoon when she hears the knock on the back door. Expecting aunt Wu or someone familiar who knows to use the backdoor when calling she's stunned to find an unfamiliar kid looking up at her until she sees Lao Yuen-Tai at his back.

“Sing Soo-Ling”, the boy says with a scowl that does nothing to hide his feelings. “I'm … I took …”

The stove behind her starts to hiss as something boils over. “Come in”, she snaps over her shoulder, already on her way to her workspace. She turns back to them once the pot is down to a simmer and the spillage cleaned up. They're both barely inside the room; Lao Yuen-Tai surely feels the doorknob pressing into his lower back as close as he stands to the door. And Sing Soo-Ling seems ready to bolt at any moment.

“You're the new boss”, Nadia states boldly, tired of tip-toeing around the obvious and eager to get them out of the house. She had forbidden her brother to conduct gang-business in their home but she couldn't help picking up names and faces. Lao actually wrings his hands, and she is close to breaking. They're nothing more than stupid, wayward boys. What do they understand?!

“I'm sorry.”

The kid means it, she can tell, but his genuine sorrow only stokes her anger.

“Where were you!”, she yells, surprising all of them. “His second and third in command! Weren't you supposed to protect him?!” If they had been with him, if they had made it to L.A. together, if they had talked sense into Shorter … On cue, she starts tearing up, anger, sorrow, there's no way of telling it apart.

“It was --”

“We tried to!” Sing drowns out whatever Lao wants to say and the young boss trudges on, clearly thinking that nothing he says will actually help his case but unable to stop. “But he went off with Ash Lynx without a word, and he didn't talk with our people in L.A. There was no way of knowing that he needed help!” Soo-Ling's voice has become quieter, his hands are fists at his sides. He appears to be unfazed by her tears and Nadia is not sure he is actually fully here, in her kitchen. What he says, the way he says it, sounds like he rehearsed it a thousand times in his head already. “We were too late.”

Yuen-Tai is no help. Nadia remembers him as a kid – they are closer in age than he is – _was_ – with Shorter – and he has always floundered when no one was there to point him into the right direction. She hates it but she realizes that if she wants them gone anytime soon, she has to talk to them first. Rubbing the moisture from her cheeks, she sniffs and asks: “Why are you here?”

Plastic creaks as she clenches the receiver in a vice-like grip. That and the ringing-tone is everything she hears. Her thoughts match the pace of her racing heart. It's past midnight. When Charlie picks up he sounds sleepy and concerned.

“Tell me everything!”, she orders before she can balk again. “Every detail you've kept from me.”

The bathroom is cool and dark. A confined, safe place where she curls up on the floor and presses a balled-up towel to her face.

Why did she ask?

The answers she's been given have only brought new questions and her feverish mind replays them over and over and _over_ again. Did it feel hot or cold when they gave him the drug? Was he even awake? Did his mind slip away like some sort of zombie, or was he conscious until the end? Was he desperate to die? Was he raging against the injustice of dying young? Was he crying? Did it hurt?

The worst moments are when her mind tries to imagine having a bullet splitting her chest.

Did he know this was going to be his last moment alive? According to Max, Shorter was dead in an instant but _how long is a thought?!_

Nadia's thoughts scatter every time they reach this point and for long moments she's just a husk in a dank room, whimpering into a towel smelling of lavender soap. Then her mind starts over again.

Aunt Wu opens the backdoor to let Charlie in. Nadia looks up from her cooling bowl of soup – aunt Wu's special recipe, guaranteed to fix everything from common cold to athlete's foot; Nadia knows it's rubbish but she hasn't been able to rouse herself to cook rice let alone a decent meal – but can't find it in her to greet him or even acknowledge his presence. The last days have blended into each other. She is exhausted, her eyes burn and her throat is raw. She wants nothing more than to hide in Charlie's arms but even the ten feet between them are an insurmountable distance. She puts down her spoon though and leans sideways against the wall, waiting for him to talk.

He doesn't. Instead, the rickety chair next to her scrapes on the floor and Charlie is sitting down, sliding his fingers into her hand as if he's afraid he will break her. Awkward silence grows between them, growing thicker even after aunt Wu has left the house, promising to return later with tea and cake and, Nadia suspects, further offers to help organize the burial.

The burial.

She closes her eyes for a second, gathering strength for what comes next.

“I want his ashes”, she says and opens her eyes in time to see Charlie blanch. He withdraws his hand. She misses his touch but her mind is made up. Charlie has tried to explain the legal ties that bind him once before, on the phone. She's still going to demand her brother's remains. If that means a cold stony silence growing between them, so be it. She keeps her eyes on him, watches him fidget and clench his fists until he slumps forward and buries his hands in his hair with a defeated sigh.

“I can't release his ashes and I can't make the coroner do so”, he says, muffled into the table, and Nadia nods even though Charlie can't see her. “I don't even know if we have his ashes …” he continues morosely. “There were so many bodies.”

“Si … someone told me that they saw Ash Lynx burning his body”, Nadia offers calmly. “In a lab.”

Charlie's head snaps up, scrutinizing her with a mixture of hope and annoyance.

“And why did they tell you and not the police?”, he snaps before he can stop himself, but tags on a muted “Sorry.” afterwards.

“Why do _you_ think?”, Nadia scoffs, quickly running out of patience. She's done explaining things, she wants results. “Anyone telling you stuff about that night would be a suspect instantly.”

“And with good reason!”, Charlie bites back. “They surely weren't on site when Golzine's mansion was _razed to the ground_ because someone ordered pizza.”

He makes sense, Nadia knows somewhere in the back of her mind but she doesn't care. His police-logic doesn't matter – her dead brother does. She wants his remains, she wants a funeral!

“No wonder no one speaks to you”, she says bitterly. “They offer help and you make them criminals.” It is also simply not how things are done in Chinatown but Nadia ignores this fact as well.

Charlie opens his mouth to shoot back at her but snaps it shut with an audible click. She briefly wonders if he was going to say something about king's evidence, or how it's called, or witness protection and is glad that he doesn't. Shorter had worked with the NYPD in the past, same as Ash, and look where it got them. Her chair scrapes over the floor as she pushes herself up, ready to climb up the stairs to her flat and leaving Charlie back here.

“Nadia”, he begs and she is weak to how he says her name. “I don't want to fight. I'm sorry, I snapped at you.” And tactile as he is, he stands up as well and embraces her. She cannot help but relax a fraction into his warmth. Not long ago she could loose herself in his embrace. Not long ago his presence brought nothing but joy and satisfaction. They even joked about marriage.

“It's okay”, she murmurs, halfway meaning it but still resentful of their circumstances.

“Can't you get them to write an anonymous statement, maybe?”, he asks quietly over her shoulder. “It might not help much but at least we can put a name on things … And I'll get a statement from Max and Shunichi, too, throw in some extra weight …” She feels him draw a deep breath and his arms tighten around her, bracing them both for what he says next. “And please, file a missing person's report. As long as Shorter's not officially missing I can do little about his ashes.”

“I'll …” Nadia stops, unable to answer.

It'll mean other people, it'll mean snooping around in her life and questions, questions, _questions_. It'll mean convincing people that her brother is lost when she knows exactly where he is. It'll mean strangers judging him and deciding if he deserves help or if he's just another misfit hurting his family. And suddenly it's all too much again, does she feel tears welling up and her throat tighten. She leans her head back on Charlie's shoulders, staring up at the ceiling and trying to blink the haziness away. Charlie still waits for her answer.

“Please, go”, she asks instead, her voice clogging up. “I want to be alone.”

And Charlie, to his never ending credit, leaves. His worried blue eyes are the last thing she sees before the back door snicks shut and Nadia collapses as soon as she is alone. She can't even tell why she's crying, just that it's all too much to bear.

The hinges creak softly as the door is pushed open. Nadia lingers on the threshold, hand raised for the light switch but not flicking it on. Here in the no-man's-land between dimly-lit hall and darkened bedroom, Shorter's familiar scent mixes with the rest of the flat. For the moment, she's calm, for the moment, she thinks she can handle it.

She flicks the light.

There's a ringing in her ears, there's darkness lurking at the edge of her sight. There is a fist sized rock of dry salt and bitterness lodged behind her heart.

She needs both her hands to hold the receiver steady, she needs her bed to continue existing. The tremors wracking her frame force her to curl inward like an animal protecting a grievous wound. Flashes of what she's seen in front of her inner eye – his unmade bed, his motorcycle magazines strewn across the faded carpet.

The call goes to voice-mail and she redials. Another kind of ringing in her ears.

She has left his room as he left it behind. Boundaries, she said to herself; ignorance of what he might hide, her inner voice tells her. Now, she thinks she'll never be able to go in there again.

The line clicks and Soo-Ling answers. He's out of breath and she can hear shouts in the background.

“Who is it?”, he barks. He doesn't have her number in his burner phone, of course. And he hasn't had a reason to memorize it.

“Nadia”, she answers, and before he can say something: “Come by later. I need you to do something for me.”


End file.
